


On the Road Home

by tsukinofaerii



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-24
Updated: 2010-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinofaerii/pseuds/tsukinofaerii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Steve's first Thanksgiving since the Avengers found him in the ice, but the holiday they're planning isn't anything like what he's used to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Road Home

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to Valtyr, who did the dirty work of betaing.

Steve sprawled out on the sofa in the den, pretending to read a book but really listening to the sound of glass breaking and metal rattling in the kitchen. Heavy banging noises rocked through the room every now and then. When Steve gotten back from his morning run, he'd cleaned up and offered to make himself useful chopping vegetables, but he'd been shooed out almost immediately.

 _"It's your first Thanksgiving since the war." Tony braced his hands and feet against the doorframe as he blocked the kitchen with his body. "You're not allowed to help. Don't worry. Jan and I have it covered."_

For all practical purposes, it was only Steve, Jan and Tony present. Jarvis had abandoned them, going off to the safety of his mother's house. Giant Man had taken a single look at whatever was going on and walked away, muttering about being safer in his lab. Thor was off doing whatever it was Asgardians did when they weren't playing hero on Earth, though before leaving he'd announced that he would return in time for the "feast". And apparently, Iron Man's duties didn't extend to _this_ —Steve hadn't seen so much as a glimmer of him for two days.

Being kicked out of the kitchen left Steve with nothing to do but think. Searching for something to keep him busy, he tried reading, watching television and checking with law enforcement, but even criminals had families to be with. The last piece of family he had was lost somewhere in the Arctic Ocean.

Telling himself that the worst that could happen was that Tony and Jan would make a fifty foot zombie turkey didn't help. There were boys he'd fought with that would never have a Thanksgiving dinner again. _Bucky_ would never have a Thanksgiving dinner again. He could have still been in the ocean, or dead at Zemo's hands. He was lucky.

Around noon, Tony wandered out of the kitchen. His formerly white t-shirt had burn marks, and a stain Steve hoped was cranberry sauce. Without asking, he moved Steve's feet and sat down on the cushion they'd occupied, leaving them propped on his thighs.

"So, do you have any favorites?"

Carefully, Steve lowered his book, eyeing Tony over the top edge. Up close, the stain proved that yes, it was cranberry sauce. More worrying were the Band-Aids on Tony's fingers, three of them. "What are you doing in there?"

"Cooking. Sort of." Tony slapped his shins. "Now, come on. Favorites? A pie or something? And don't say apple."

Steve stared at him, but Tony's expression of hopeful keenness didn't abate. The cultural gulf had never seemed quite so large. "Tony."

"Cap?"

"When was I born?"

"July fourth, 1920s, according to the Encyclopedia," came Tony's immediate answer, which was just disturbing. To have his birthday on a list of significant dates that could just be rattled off...

Steve shook it off. There'd be plenty of time to get used to it. He didn't have a choice. "Exactly. I was eight when the market crashed. My mother made tomato soup, corned beef and mince pie for Thanksgiving. I never ate turkey until the war, much less any of that fancy stuff." He snapped his book closed and sat up, dragging his feet off of Tony's lap and planting them on the floor. "So just forget about it."

When Steve stood, Tony grabbed his arm. "Cap..." His mouth hung open, hesitating on whatever he was going to say. "Steve, I'm sorry—"

"I said forget it." Steve pulled his arm back and headed for the door. "I'm going out."

Tony didn't stop him again.  


* * *

  
"A jog" turned into a two hour meander around the grounds. The sound of the city was dimmed by the walls around the property, but not inaudible. It was comforting. Modern traffic didn't sound anything like it did back in his day. The car engines were smoother, the sirens changed and the music completely different. Just having it as a background noise grounded him.

It was peaceful.

The roar of jetboots warned him that Iron Man was coming long before he saw the tell-tale shadow. He came down too fast, too _flashy_ , a gauntlet and knee clanking against the ground while his other arm stretched out theatrically. A grocery bag had been hooked around his shoulders like a backpack. Maybe that was why he didn't have a jetpack.

"Hey, Cap, what are you doing out here?" Iron Man stood up, head tilted curiously. He looked good, next to the fall colors of the mansion grounds; the armor's metallic red and gold complemented the softer, more natural colors. The artist in Steve approved.

"Getting some air." Steve looked down at the leaves under his feet, considering how much to say. He didn't want to bother Iron Man, but they were friends, and he'd never seemed to mind listening to Steve's problems before. "Cooling off. I lost it a little earlier. Thought I'd blow off some steam before going back."

"You? Lost it?" Iron Man did him the favor of not sounding skeptical. "What happened?"

He told him. It didn't take long. Iron Man was faster to the punch than Tony. Steve had barely mentioned his childhood before he nodded and said _the Depression_ , as if it explained everything. The little things that had been bugging him all day spilled out, one after the other. "... and Tony being... _pushy_ , and excited and... it was just the last blow. I shouldn't have snapped at him. He was just trying to be nice."

"Come on, Cap, it's not that bad." Iron Man's arm wrapped around his shoulder, heavier for the armor, but not much. It was amazingly light weight stuff for being so durable. "You didn't even punch the guy, and sometimes _I_ want to punch him. You just walked out. Stop giving yourself such a hard time."

He shook his head. "I need to apologize."

"You really don't, but if it makes you feel better..." Iron Man patted Steve's shoulder, the gauntlet's repulsor a blocky bump in the touch. "Look, I hate to run, but I just came to check up on something."

"Why don't you stay? You're one of the team."

It was impossible to tell through the helmet, but Steve had the impression that Iron Man was smiling. "Can't. I'm spending Thanksgiving with family. Maybe next year."

Steve frowned. "You have family?" he asked, bewildered. He'd always gotten the impression that Iron Man was a bachelor, without very many ties. "You never said."

"It's kind of a new thing." Iron Man gave him the thumbs up while his boots whirred, charging, lifting him a few inches off the ground. "Don't get too down, Cap. It'll be okay."

And in a blast of noise, he was gone.  


* * *

  
It took another hour before Steve finally convinced himself to go back inside and face the music. Tony would be angry at him, and rightfully so. But the only thing Steve could do was apologize and hope it didn't ruin the holiday for anyone else.

He was surprised when Tony practically pounced on him almost as soon as he walked in the door.

"Come on, Cap, dinner's done!" He slung an arm around Steve's shoulders, steering him towards the dining room. He'd changed from the t-shirt he'd been wearing into a plain white button-up, but he still smelled like hot metal from his lab. "Hank came up from the lab, and Thor just arrived. I was about to go looking for you."

Steve dug in his heels rather than let Tony drag him along. "Wait—Tony! You're not angry?"

Tony looked at him, his eyes crinkled a little at the corners with a smile. "What would I be angry about?"

He really wasn't. Reading body language was one of the things Steve had learned in the war, when he'd been under cover, and nothing about Tony's said he was even upset. "But—I snapped at you?"

"Don't worry about it." The pressure on his shoulder started again, and this time Steve gave in. Tony was a lot like his body guard. They were both hands-on sort of people. "I should have remembered that this is a tough time for you. Let's just forget it and eat dinner."

In the dining room, Thor and Hank had already seated themselves and were eying the food with a mix of healthy suspicion and hunger. Jan had taken over the sideboard, in the process of arranging mint sprigs and berries around a cake. The centerpiece was a beautifully roasted turkey easily twice as big as any Steve had ever seen. Other than the size it looked fairly normal, without any signs of radiation or zombification. The side dishes were arrayed around it: stuffing, cranberry dressing, rolls...

"Tomato soup," Steve blurted out.

"We couldn't find any corned beef," Jan said cheerfully, finishing her decoration. "But we had everything we needed for the soup, and I'd already planned the pie."

"I..." Steve shook his head, struck wordless. "Tony— Jan—" He touched Tony's shoulder, squeezing it lightly. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Tony grinned and gave him a gentle push towards a chair. "It's probably the easiest thing to make on the table. Barely took any time at all."

Thor stirred from his investigation of the corn. "I must say, friend Tony, I am surprised you have such talent at the hearth."

"Jarvis gets holidays off, so my mother used to cook for them every year. Only time she did," Tony said flippantly, taking a seat at Steve's right. The head of the table was conspicuously empty, but that seemed right. There wasn't really a head of house. "You pick things up."

Jan snickered and sat across from Steve between Hank and Thor, wiggling to get comfortable in a way that brought her just a little closer to Hank's side. "I just hope you get the oven fixed before Jarvis notices."

Hank looked away from the turkey, slipping some sort of hand-held gadget into his pocket. "What did you do?"

"Let's just say that the turkey took fifteen minutes, and we didn't have time to close the door on the pies." Tony reached across and grabbed the carving knife, holding it out to Steve. "Cap, you want to do the honors?"

When Steve took the knife, his hand touched Tony's. "Thank you." he said trying to put everything he was feeling into those two words. Tony just grinned.

The turkey ended up in more chunks than slices, but the soup was good, and Jan turned out to have a deft hand for pies. Steve stayed mostly quiet during the meal, smiling to himself while Hank and Tony argued some scientific theory. Thor cut in occasionally with a strangely fitting anecdote from Asgard, and Jan sided with Hank on everything. Every now and then, Tony would touch his knee under the table and glance over at him. Steve would return it with a bump on the ankle, and Tony would turn back to bickering over particle physics with Hank, reassured. It was all new and strange, with ideas scientists in his era hadn't dreamed of being exchanged as small talk. Whenever he started to get overwhelmed, Steve took a sip of his soup and let the familiarity warm him.

Maybe it wasn't home, but it was getting there.


End file.
